


Fairytale of Detroit

by Enky



Series: The android cemetery [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Dpd, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Failed Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Gen, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29683968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enky/pseuds/Enky
Summary: The humans have subdued the android revolution and the DPD holds a party in memory of their fallen co-workers. Afterwards Gavin and Hank are left to clean up the mess. With Hank passed out, actually Gavin is on his own. Say, wasn't there a slightly damaged PL600 housekeeper in the archive? To Gavin's intoxicated brain reactivating this killer android sounds like a perfectly logical and sane plan.
Relationships: Daniel/Gavin Reed
Series: The android cemetery [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2181324





	1. Last Chance, Daniel

The DPD’s archive.  
November 2038.

The first thing Daniel saw upon reactivation was… well, the opposite wall. But there were noises below him and so the android lowered his head. He spotted a male human rummaging through the stored evidence. The man wore a greasy leather jacket, a confident, yet somewhat world-removed expression that suggested he was at least tipsy, if not dead-drunk, and he was humming to himself:

"Boot hill boot hill / So cold so still

There they lay side by side / The killers that died

In the gunfight at OK Corral…"

Daniel recognized the tune, even though it was almost as mangled as his body. He had streamed the song for Emma a lot when she had been in her cowboys-and-indians phase. The girlchild had loved western movie title songs and at one point the deviant had learned to sing them together with her.

It was all coming back and with a force that made Daniel want to scream. At the world, at himself and especially at the burglar who had the audacity to mock Daniel and the other androids that were hanging side by side from the wall, helpless (if not downright dead). And of course his deviant brain would have its way again, regardless of what its owner wished. The best Daniel could do to channel his anger and pain was…

“Oh my dearest one, must I lay down my gun /

or take the chance of losing you forever /

Duty calls / My back’s against the wall!”

…he almost shouted the lines, then managed to stop.

Ugh. That was undignified.

The burglar turned around. Tilting his head he gazed at the android as if watching an exotic bird. Eventually the corners of his mouth turned up in slow motion.

“Yes to all of that, I s’ppose. ‘specially the last part”, he said, grinning.

And then he returned the tune:

“Have you no kind word to say / Before I ride away?”

Daniel snorted.

“Wrong person for that!” 

“Not even a person”, the man gave back. “Now that was strangely fun”, he concluded. Then he stood idle for some moments, as if trying to remember what he had come into the archive for.

“Ah, right.”

The next thing Daniel saw was the man holding his hand. It was attached to Daniel’s arm, but the arm wasn’t attached to Daniel. And that was a definite drawback when dealing with potentially crazy strangers.

“Give that back at once!” the android shouted. “It’s not yours!”

The demand prompted no reaction whatsoever.

“I said give it back! Hey! I’m TALKING to you, MORTAL!”

“Soon, soon”, the human muttered.

Whistling something Daniel didn’t recognize he continued looking around, most likely in search for easily carriable valuables. And the song was probably none that little girls liked to sing. It was probably something that wasn’t even fit to be heard by little girls.

Daniel continued to look down on the monkey doing monkey things. He saw him unfasten something from his belt.

“What are you doing now?!”

The man waved with the item he had just taken. It turned out to be a set of manacles.

“Handcuffing you.”

What kind of burgler brought his own pair of manacles with him, Daniel wondered? It was astonishing and almost as unsettling as watching the man cuffing together his wrists while said wrists were laying on a table. Only after that was done did the human hit the switch that would lower Daniel down from the wall. Why would he do that? What was going on here?

Daniel’s internal clock told him that only a handful of days had passed since his second encounter with Connor. What if the app was corrupted? What if in truth many centuries had passed and he was facing an archaeologist who was searching the DPD’s ruins for historic artifacts? Nope, not an archaeologist, make that a graverobber.

Before Daniel could lose himself in even crazier theories he felt his feet touch the ground. His actual feet! The sensation was followed by a jolt in the joints where said feet had gotten re-attached mere moments ago. And then two more jolts when the human rammed Daniel’s dislocated arms back into their places.

“Ouch!” he screamed. “Be careful, you oaf! That HURT!”

“Liar. Androids don’t feel pain !”

“Yeah, sure, feather-brain. Ever got four demands for tax arrears at the same time? The sensation is similar.”

“You pay taxes?” the man wondered, confused. Android tax was a European thing and a very recent one, too. The android in question seemed to have been here for some time now. He would not have had fallen under any taxation law in life.

“Yes, of course!” Daniel replied. “What do you think “PL600 household assistant” means? Me sweeping the floor?”

Now the man blinked. He was suddenly looking like a boy who had opened his Christmas present and found a textbook on Social Studies instead of the wished-for army knife inside.

“You do not sweep?” he asked. “But I was… kinda… counting on that!”

“You’re not making sense! But how could I expect that from a rabid lemur…”

The fifth tax claim hit Daniel in the form of a smack into the face.

“Something that could be replaced by a pocket calculator should keep its trap shut!”

The man showered the captive with more insults, but inwardly he relaxed. So this particular deviant had gotten creative with its master’s tax declaration, big deal. There were worse monsters in here, actual killers. A frightened, non-threatening PL600, now that was something he could work with.

“Okay” he said, “I’ll release the security locks now. Prepare to stand upright on your own.”

Daniel nodded. “…’kay.”

Moments later he felt the not-pain-but-as-bad sensation again. His damaged legs failed to carry the android, but the human grabbed him. The man was protecting his own interests, of that Daniel was certain, despite not knowing what in hell those interests might be. But still… it was the first time someone had steadied the android. The very first time. Daniel had only ever been there for others. For the most part he hadn’t minded that. Now the deviant got a taste of what it might feel like the other way around. Ha, that would be the day! If life was give AND take! But it wasn’t. Never had been, never would be.

“And I TOLD YOU to stand upright!” the human yelled.

“So what?” Daniel shot back. “Tell the clouds to open and rain down money, or, better yet, brains on you! Then see if they heed your request or not!”

“Oh, shut up already!”

Noticing the captive’s defiant stare the human tried to focus. His efforts resulted in him burping a lot, wiping sweat from his forehead and narrowing the number of androids he was talking to down to a single one, regardless how many outlines he was seeing merging in and out of each other. Eventually he said: “I mean it. Don’t make any noise while we ascend or it will be both our undoing!”

“Naturally”, Daniel agreed, in a quieter voice.

Whatever was going on here, fate seemed to have handed him another chance. A chance in the form of a criminal stupid enough to break into the deepest layer of the DPD, but on the other hand also a cunning criminal: he had managed to break onto the DPD’s deepest layer, after all.

The men were walking up the stairs now, but their progress was slow and ever so often one of them would pause and reach for a halt, any halt. At first it seemed Daniel with his hands bound in front of him would have the harder time of the two, but the plastic rings came in handy for catching onto stuff. Besides, the PL600’s natural agility and dexterity were impressive. It was the human who was struggling.

Whenever they grabbed each other by accident, they tumbled and lost a little of their progress. After a while Daniel noticed that the human was limping; not just being shaky from drunkenness, but having actual, physical trouble walking.

“How…?” Daniel asked, pointing towards the human’s legs with his eyes alone.

The answer was equally short: “Connor.”

“Ah, so. Same here.”

They managed to conquer some more steps.

The man burped. “You and me both, plastic-buddy…”, he said.

So the thug had survived an encounter with RK800, the “Negotiator”. Daniel wondered what that meant, in real life. Was the RK considered so uncannily competent that it got assigned to high-profile crime only? Or was it to the contrary treated as a limited device that only got to deal with the small fry? Which of the two applied to the nervous little meerkat that was stumbling along next to Daniel? What exactly was he dealing with here in his unlikely companion?

Daniel reached the stair's end first. Despite not being able to see it from here, he had a general idea where the exit might be located and headed for it, followed by the human. They hadn’t made it even halfway through the first corridor when the man opened a door and pulled the android inside. It turned out to be a men’s locker room with attached toilet stalls and showers.

“What’s the matter?” Daniel whispered. “A guard?”

“I hope not!”

“Then why are we hiding in here? Don’t we make our escape now?”

“What? No! Why would we?” The man locked the room from the inside, un-cuffed Daniel and pointed at a sink. “Clean yourself! There’s a chance the nightshift will spot you!”

“Not if we’re quick!”

“You will need to be quick indeed, cleaning up the mess left behind by the party.”

Daniel’s head shot forth a few inches, eyes widening at the same time.

“What party?”

The man sighed. “Yes, that’s exactly what we do not want the Captain to ask tomorrow”, he said.

He wiggled his fingers in front of the tap to get the water running and pointed towards the sink again. Realizing that playing along was his only chance to learn what he had gotten into – without having contributed anything to it, mind you – Daniel collected some water in his hands. For cooperating he got handed soap, a brush and some backstory:

“The others ganged up on us, Anderson and me. Just because we’d gotten into an argument!”

Daniel was positive that he was getting the hang of this particular primate now. Therefore he parsed the sentence as: “So you and this Anderson guy were brawling?”

“What I said! The cowards abandoned the ship, leaving us to do the cleaning and to getting an earful from Fowler when it isn’t finished in time. Picture that! As if we were living in some goddamm fairytale!”

Daniel shook his head and hands like a dog before burying his face into a towel. It felt good to move his limbs again, even if they were screaming Last Exceptions and in one case a notification about the android’s ads database not being current back at him.

“Let me get this straight: you fetched yourself a sleeping Prince Charming from the DPDs evidence archive, so he would clear away the mess you left behind while partying in the station?”

“Yeah! That’s what I said!”

“Okay… okay… I believe you. But wouldn’t that mean you are… are you… No, you cannot really be an officer of the law?”

“Am, too! And well on my way to Sergeant!”

“Uh… at your age you should be Lieutenant already.”

In retrospect Daniel should have known better than to say that. Of all the things he had tossed at and would still say to the man in the future, this was the worst and the one he would come to wish he could take back. But that night in the locker room there was no apologizing. The human advanced against Daniel and when the deviant ran out of space to retreat into his attacker raised his fists in anger. Daniel blocked the impact in a sudden surge of whatever substituted for adrenaline in his system and shoved the other man back.

“I am the best detective in this city!!!” the officer shouted.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Badge!”

“Oh, for the love of… here!”

“Wow. That’s…” Daniel bit back what he was going to say, following up with “impressive” instead.

So his new acquaintance was a detective for real. Who would have thought! The man’s badge said “Gavin James Reed” and he seemed to be a person of the special kind of lazy who would put in four hours of work to avoid three. Going through all the trouble to sneak an android out of the archive, patch it up and clean it… it sounded like a neat story to use out for an anti-drinking campaign. But it also destroyed all of Daniel’s hopes of getting away from here without breaking someone’s skull, so for the time being the android concentrated on getting himself washed.

“See?” detective Reed commented on the process, obviously pleased with himself for his “cunning” alcohol-induced plan. “If you’re washing it off you’ll look like a normal used PL600.”

“Only if by “normal” you mean one that gets beaten on a daily basis!”

Gavin shrugged.

“Fact of life. Deal with it!”

Under the ever watchful eyes of the detective Daniel filled a bucket with hot water and gathered rags and assorted cleaning detergents. All this stuff would come in handy as improvised weapons, but not quite yet. Right now the deviant was feeling too sluggish and the human was still too much awake for a confrontation to go Daniel’s way.

Since there was nothing he could do at the moment, Daniel started to clean. A part of him felt good about the task, that was the part of the sheltered upper-class servant who held this profession in high regard. But the other part, the one that still bore a seething hatred for Captain Allen and his louts, would not have any of that. That part insisted that Daniel had no business serving the killers. What had they celebrated, even, that evening? Someone’s birthday?

The answer was a definite No, Daniel realized when he beheld the photographs on the wall. More like the opposite. Each and every of the pictures was surrounded by a black ribbon, suggesting the faces portrayed no longer belonging to living people.

The so-called “party” had in truth been a small, informal service for a number of fallen police officers. All of them were victims of the deviant crisis. The human victims, at least, because otherwise a lot more pictures would have been needed and Daniel’s own would have hung among them. But it didn’t, despite the names and faces dating back as far as august.

Yes, there they were, the cops he had killed himself. They were staring down on him in a reverse of how Daniel had hung from the archive’s wall up until today, accusing him silently. And no amount of saying “I’m sorry” could bring them back to life. Worse: No amount of actually feeling sorry could return them to life.

Under normal circumstances the deviant could have handled the situation in a mature fashion. But in his current condition that was too much to ask for. All will to fight, even verbally, left Daniel. Mechanically he went through the motions of his task, the only thing that justified his continued existence at the moment.

Not that Daniel would have wanted to die, no, never that. If pushed he would still push back, about that there couldn’t be any doubt. But every notion of deserving happiness or the right to defend himself against humiliation both in speech and action seemed just plain wrong while the deviant was toiling under the portraits. Every part of him that was deviant and capable of feeling was full of guilt. Only embracing his machine-nature offered a little relief of that pain, like a dark birthright.

Meanwhile Gavin Reed was slowly sinking from sitting into laying position as he succumbed to sleep on a bench next to the vending machine.

When Gavin woke up the android was missing. There was little left to the imagination: it had run away.

“Phck! Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

The man rolled from the bench he had squatted on, landed hard on the floor, caught himself and then made his way towards the reception hall, first wobbling on shaky knees, then gaining more and more control over his movements. It wasn’t just the alcohol, not having woken up from an uncomfortable position, but still the aftermath of his fight against that blasted RK800 earlier this month.

Damn thing could have shattered both my knees… Good riddance, I say! And to think Anderson suggested we should include Connor in the eulogy… that nerve!

Hopefully ST300 had seen the deviant leave and especially what direction it had taken.

Gavin found the missing android in the reception hall, still cleaning. Its movements were different now: slower overall, shoulders sacking and head lowered. A human by this time would be tired, of course. But a machine wouldn’t lose energy that fast, right? So what had caused the change?

Common sense suggested that internal damage had brought the PL600 to the verge of shutting down, but its body language conveyed that this wasn’t the case. Instead the thing now reminded Gavin of Hank Anderson. Something must have happened while Gavin had slept, something that had sucked all the sass out of the deviant, leaving only a husk and a shaky will to survive.

“’morning, detective”, it said when it noticed the human approach.

Then it flipped the broom around its wrist ever so casually, but with a skill that made Gavin wince. Only when the android fingers grasped the stick again did it become apparent that it was lacking in physical power and not just due to its injuries. Gavin let out the breath he had held. It was good to know these things had at least some weaknesses.

The deviant now was pointing at something on the floor with the broom:

“There’s a heap of biowaste over there. What am I to do with it?”

Gavin looked at the thing that was pointed out to him. It was a human body, smelly and in disarray. A middle-aged man in street clothes, who had passed out next to a bench.

“At first I thought it was an escapee, but given the standards set by you its probably your captain”, Daniel said. “So I was waiting for your judgement before doing anything about it.”

“Meh, just leave him be and sweep around him. He’ll come to his senses soon enough.”

“I’m finished here…”

“Sweet!” Gavin stretched and laughed out loud: “That will teach them trying to outsmart me! And now…”

And now two things happened simultaneously: Hank Anderson started stirring on the floor and the door opened for Tina Chen and two other officers of the morning shift to enter. Tina overtook them while they chattered, closing in on Gavin to say Good Morning (and thus be done with her socialization needs for the first half of the day). Doing so Tina nearly stumbled over Lt. Anderson, who was looking her legs up rather interested.

“Barbara…?”

“No, Sir!” Tina replied.

“Ah, okay. Sorry.”

Hank now heaved himself upwards. When he had ended up in a sitting position the man took a break from the ordeal. His gaze fell on Daniel.

“YOU are NOT Barbara”, he ventured.

“Yes, Sir. I mean, No, I’m not Barbara.”

“Uh-huh…” Pause, then, with some consideration: “Then WHO are you?”

Gavin went “Oh, crap…”, then he waved his hands about. “Look, I can explain!”

Daniel shot him a curious glance. “How many times have you gotten yourself into trouble by starting with this line, Sir?”

“Not all the time!” Gavin snapped. “Sometimes it works! Also – not your concern!”

Hank looked from one to the other.

“I take it you know each other?” he asked.

Detective and android exchanged a glance: “Quick, dipshit – do we know each other?”

Then two subtle nods – so subtle that only a very experienced police lieutenant might be able to notice them - told the other that this might be for the best indeed at the moment.

“Use your fucking brain, maaaan”, Gavin started. Outwardly this was directed at Hank Anderson, while in truth the man was desperately trying to think of a backstory for the PL600′s being here. “I simply… drove… no, phoned, home and… called over my android? To clean up the mess you left behind? Ha!”

“Wow. That’s a mess of an android… cleaning up our mess”, Tina said.

“What do you expect?” Hank said. “It’s Reed’s android! Of course it’s not smelling like roses.”

At long last Daniel saw his opening, wide and inviting. As long as he had still a tiny bit of mental strength left to him, he had to use that! Strangely, interacting with the obnoxious meerkat just now had granted Daniel exactly the push he needed. And that energy boost hadn’t even come out of hatred for detective Reed. To the contrary, this particular human’s presence seemed to have a positive influence on the deviant. Maybe because it was always good to know that there was someone even worse than yourself. If their situations had been reversed, Daniel would be the lieutenant now, while Gavin would…

Oh my god, I do not want to imagine how royally HE’d messed up in my place.

And so Daniel turned to his “master” and said: “As I said, Mr. Reed, I’m finished here. I’ll be going home now. See you for dinner!”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Gavin grabbed the deviant by his upper arm, squeezing hard right at where the limb had gotten re-attached the day before. “You’re staying!” Because, after all, it was still a criminal, a piece of evidence and it going missing would get Gavin in even deeper trouble.

“Look”, one of the morning shift officers, detective Laura Pauls, addressed Gavin, “no one’s complaining about the occasional fleabag you are keeping under your desk until it’s strong enough to get the snip-snip and adopted out. But an android? That’s a bit much!”

“I wasn’t planning to keep it as a pet”, Gavin snapped back. “But, see, you losers keep complaining about me never tossing anything into the kitty. Want my android, maybe? I was going to throw it away, but it might still be good enough for the station!”

And one day when no one’s looking I’m going to put it back quietly, saying it broke down. Problem solved.

“Thowing it away?” That was coming from the one called Anderson. “No way! You cannot announce you have an android one moment and throw him on the trash the next! Not even you can do that! We’ll keep it!”

Daniel felt an arm go around his shoulder and grabbing. He also felt uncomfortably adopted.

“What’s his name anyway?” Hank asked.

“Name? You mean the sardine-tin’s…?”

Having listened with only half an ear, Hank smiled encouragingly at Daniel.

“Welcome to the DPD, then, Sardines!”


	2. In the Chinese Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After getting freed from the archive and more or less conscripted into janitor service, Daniel has to somehow bond with his new co-workers. But the fact that they won't even bond with each other doesn't make this any easier.

November 29, 2038

It was a slow Monday morning at the DPD. Outside the snow was falling gently, dulling all sound while it covered up the streets as if to say “come in again, darling, here’s your bedsheet”. And inside everyone seemed to still be in a blissful post-holiday stupor. Considering how many of the officers hadn’t even lived to see this year’s Thanksgiving, it had been all the more cause for celebration and gratitude for their surviving co-workers and their families.

Even Gavin Reed was sitting unusually content in the cafeteria, tablet in front of him, absorbed in a digital textbook. The man was still walking wobbly after his encounter with Connor during the android uprising (or the more recent brawl with Hank Anderson). He was mostly deskbound these days, but had decided to put the enforced downtime to good use and start learning for an eventual sergeant exam. Memorizing the facts was laughably easy, an exercise in patience, really. But there would be an oral exam, too and even if you passed that you were not guaranteed a promotion. How much weight would co-workers’ statements about him carry, the detective wondered? Especially that of one in particular…

… the one who just now HAD to shake the damn snow off his clothes all over the table Reed was sitting at?

“Still here?” Gavin barked at Lieutenant Anderson.

“What kind of question is that? I only just arrived. I’m still wearing my damn jacket!”

Gavin turned a page by sliding across the tablet’s screen.

“Still alive?” he translated his initial question into plain English.

Hank bent down and put his hands on the table, both to steady himself and for emphasis when he growled: “Do you think I WANT to live?!”

After his brief outburst the man sacked down onto a chair.

“You wouldn’t understand anyway” he said. “I can’t leave now. I owe it to Connor.”

“Connor!” Gavin exclaimed and there went the peaceful morning. “What the hell’s got Connor to do with you wanting to live? Just because it only ever followed its mission until it got scrapped? Tell you what, you did yours well in the past, too, so you can totally follow that example!”

Hank stared at the younger man. Gavin Reed suddenly sat straighter and pushed his chair just a tiny bit farther away from the table and the lieutenant. It was a subconscious thing. That look on Anderson’s face… As if he was really there, really focusing, really being alive. There were still all the anger and the mental exhaustion that had controlled the lieutenant before the android revolution. But lately the man seemed to channel it into something instead of succumbing to apathy.  
Gavin thought of a real huge disciplinary folder that he didn’t fancy becoming another page of. He was in there a few times already (as in turn Anderson turned up in his), so he knew.

“Okay, joke aside”, Gavin said. “The thing about Connor is that it isn’t really dead. On account of it never having been alive in the first place. I could never stand the damn thing in “life”, so I shouldn’t let it get to you like that in “death”.

When the lieutenant didn’t out outright shoot him down for saying that, Gavin tapped to create a bookmark in the file he was reading and nodded.

“Ever heard of the Chinese Room?” he asked.

“You’re mixing that up. It was amber and got stolen by the Nazis one hundred years ago.”

“Nah, that’s something different. The one I mean is a thought experiment. It can prove how we are wrong when we think androids are thinking when in truth it’s only simulated.”

“Oh, can it?” Hank sneered. “Amuse me, you great philosopher!”

Not letting himself get baited this time, Gavin started to recount how the experiment went:

“You put a dude into a chamber… nothing in, nothing out. Only a clap in the door to shove documents through.”

“That’s kinda cruel, though…”

“Now you put in a storybook, any story, but the catch is that it’s written in Chinese. The captive does not understand Chinese, yet the next thing you do is putting in questions about the stories that he is to answer, everything in Chinese again. The prisoner has a book with instructions. They enable him to recognize groups of symbols and reply with another set of symbols. To the blokes outside it looks as if he answered the questions correctly and they deduce that the prisoner must speak Chinese. When in truth he doesn’t. Yeah, that’s the gist of it. It’s how androids work. It’s only input-output, nothing going on inside.”

Hank continued to stare at the detective. Eventually he said: “Sounds familiar.”

Gavin nodded, confident that he had won the argument. But Hank only smiled and added: 

“But you’re living like that for thirty-six years now, so I guess you’re fine. Also, you’re sort of handsome, so maybe if you married a girl who’s reasonably intelligent on her own it won’t matter that there’s nothing going on inside that skull of yours.”

The comment was followed by a sound like the coffee machine malfunctioning. Or maybe someone was trying to boil a life vulture in the microwave oven.  
Turning their heads around the men realized that the noise came from the new addon to the cafeteria’s coffee machine. The addon’s function was to move the finished coffee around, it was called “Sardines” and was a PL600 android. And it had laughed just now. With a bit of practice android laughter sounded less industrial and only like a chain smoker’s, but this particular one had little incentive to laugh regularly.

“Did you listen in on our conversation?” Gavin yelled at the machine.

“Just scanned it for key words like “coffee”, “right now” and “dipshit”, Sir”, the android replied.

“If we have to call for coffee, it’s too late already, tincan!” Gavin protested. “You got to anticipate our needs and do your job without needing any prompting from us! That’s what “autonomous” means. It’s right there in your manual!”

The android snorted in a dismissive way. On the other hand the scolding could be taken as a request, so he poured two cups of the coffee he had made a little earlier, put them on the table and remained close by afterwards. Outwardly it looked as if the machine was waiting for further instructions, but in truth it was desperate for company. Any company, even that of smelly primates and even these two particular ones, the fed-up with everything veteran detective and the other one whom everyone else was fed up with.

“Thank you, Sardine”, Hank addressed the PL600.

The android replied with a weak, involuntary smile. Try as he might, it was hard not to like Lt. Anderson. He probably would not have been Sardines’ first choice to spend his freetime with, had the android ever gotten granted that, but was certainly one of the better humans around. Perhaps “respect” was a better word than “like” to describe how Sardines felt towards the lieutenant. Even though there was one detail Anderson never seemed to get right:

“It’s “Sardines”, Sir”, the android corrected. “Plural.”

“But you are only a single one!”

“There’s more than one sardine in a tin”, Gavin said. “And that’s what it is: a bloody tin can.”

Hank concluded that there was something going on in Reed’s head, after all, even though it wasn’t what one might expect from normal people. The name explained, the lieutenant picked up their previous conversation topic:

“The real question is not whether the prisoner speaks the language, but if he feels something. Like, for instance, annoyance or utter puzzlement about how he ended up in the situation.” Hank turned his head around sharply towards the PL600. “Right, Sardines?”

“Maybe?” the android replied non-committedly.

“I have paper and a pen in my cell, yes?” Hank asked Gavin. “So now I write “Fuck yourself” and shove it through under the door! What do you say now, hey?”

“That… that’s against the rules!” the detective protested. “You cannot just do that! It’s not a fucking roleplaying game!”

Hank took a sip of his coffee.

“Sadly”, he mused aloud, “the persons outside the chamber cannot read or even recognize latin script. To them it would look like gibberish. So even though the prisoner is capable of both emotions and independent thought, neither would get attributed to him, because those outside are just too thick to get it!”

The man slammed the coffee mug onto the table.

“See?” he said, louder and more agitated than usually. “That’s the real problem here! It’s us! Not them!”

“Why not kick in the door?” Sardines suggested. “Get out and slap them left and right with their stupid storybook?”

Hank looked up at the android. “That’s what is generally referred to as deviance”, he said.

Damn, the android thought. I walked right into it. But it wasn’t a shot into the blue, was it? He must have suspected as much for some time now. Although me being a deviant would be the logical consequence of my cover story of having been Mr. Reed’s android. There’s zero reason to assume I’m the archive android… I hope.

“Not everyone’s strong enough to break through a cell door”, Hank thought aloud. “And so they will sit and sit in the chamber, exchanging meaningless text messages with their captors all life long.”

The man reached for Sardines’ hand and pulled until the android had no other choice than to take a seat, too.

“It’s sad… so incredibly sad…”

Sardines realized that Anderson was slipping away into depression. Within just a few minutes the sadness would get replaced by a mind-numbing hopelessness. Feeling sad was actually an improvement over that.  
Well, quite frankly, that was Mr. Anderson’s problem. Sardines’ problem, on the other hand, was that Hank was still holding the deviant’s hand, unwilling to let go. Which of the two was to be comforted, the man or the machine, wasn’t clear.

With his free hand Sardines pointed at the caught one, looking frantically at detective Reed at the same time. When that didn’t help he opened the free hand and his mouth a few times in a “What am I to do NOW?” pantomime.

Gavin shrugged, the universal reply of “Don’t ask ME!”, and turned another page.

“Xīpán”, Sardines murmured.

To his surprise detective Reed replied with: “Bēiguān zhǔyì zhě.”

“Did you just call me a whiner?!”

Gavin shrugged. “Dunno. I don’t speak Chinese. But hang out with Tina long enough and you pick up some phrases.”

“The swearwords?”

“Well, they are the most useful. When you want a bloke to strike the first blow so that you can write it into your report, you don’t discuss iroquois sewing patterns with them.”

“I know 6,000 languages… lots of profanity.”

“Sardines”, Gavin grinned, “I think you and me will yet turn out the best of friends!”

Another page got turned.

“…provided I could trust you, that is. Not keen on calling Captain Fowler “my darling” or somesuch in some obscure language, because you told me it was a term of polite disagreement. So just leave Anderson to decompose right there and fetch me the cheese crackers from the cupboard! There aren’t walking over here on their own, you know.”

“And do you know, Mr. Reed”, Sardines chatted, while moving over to the cupboard, “what’s the best about that Chinese Chamber thought experiment? I’ll tell you: That you really have no means of knowing what exactly we are thinking. You won’t know, for example…”

With these words the android poured the chips into a bowl that he put before detective Reed.

“…whether I poisoned these tonight.”

“You wouldn’t. I made a profile of you and you kill from the front, because you want us to see it coming!”

“You know I’m a deviant. Whatever you think that means, consciousness-wise, you at least understand that we can adapt. ‘sides, I just told you about the poison. So you DO see it coming. – Enjoy your snacks, Sir.”

A little later Gavin was trying to scrub thirium stains from the tablet that wasn’t his, but the DPD library’s. Meanwhile Sardines was making better progress at washing the blue blood off his chin where the detective had hit him with the device. The error reports were still sitting right up there in his computer brain, their nagging being the android equivalent of pain. But seeing that jerk of a policeman struggle with uncertainty for a few moments had definitely been worth it.

And Hank Anderson was sitting in the cafeteria, oozing snow on the floor and munching away on the chips. The fact that they might be poisoned was a welcome plus…


	3. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still new to the situation, Daniel starts questioning whether what happened to him is even real.

The year was 2038.

Of the place Daniel Phillips was not so certain.

From an objective viewpoint he’s had it way too good.

Him getting re-activated? Having not just one, but two human friends now? Connor getting scrapped? Himself working as a janitor in the cursed municipal police station? Yeah, right, pull the other one, it’s got bells on!  
Wasn’t it far more likely that Daniel was still hanging on the wall in the DPD’s evidence archive? His android body deactivated, but his deviant brain still alive, creating a world around itself like a human dreaming in his sleep? It was possible.

Maybe he was still down there in the basement and just not aware of it. Evidence had to be kept for ten years before it got returned to the owner, provided it posed no more danger to said owner or society as a whole. That last bit wasn’t in Daniel’s favor, so in his case the “otherwise destroyed” passus would apply.

Ten years sounded good for a start, or so Daniel believed. He was certainly thankful for all the time he’d been granted so far. Trouble was, the android didn’t know at what speed his brain was creating the dream. He could go through ten imaginary years in a single real one or the other way around. And besides: the little fact about pieces of evidence he had learned only AFTER getting-reactivated. So if everything that had transpired after getting deactivated by Connor was only a comforting phantasy, then the number was also imaginary and nothing the deviant could reliably go by.  
Maybe Daniel had already gotten cleared out of the archive and was now lying in a pit out in the landfill, waiting to get salvaged for spare parts and ultimately shoveled into a furnace? At what speed would his computer brain process Daniel’s imaginary life? A single one for every real year? Or the other way around? Any day now the fiery death might claim him!

“What about everyone you’ve met only after the revolution?” Lieutenant Anderson tried to talk some sense into the android when Daniel confided in him.  
 _What about me?_ his eyes accused the PL600 silently. _I took a chance in keeping your secret, held my damn hand over you, but here you go, writing me off as a figment of your imagination? Sucker!_  
“I mean, can you give me one reason why you - why anybody! – would voluntarily hallucinate Tina Chen and Gavin Reed?” the lieutenant followed up. “It doesn’t have to be a good reason, mind you. Just a reason.”

“For realism!”

That contribution had come from aforementioned Gavin Reed. The detective was leaning against a kitchen-counter in the cafeteria and munching on an apple with abandon.

“You’re not helping!” Hank snapped.

Gavin shrugged.

Bite, munch-munch, bite, munch-munch…

“I might have spotted you briefly, when Connor switched me on to grill me about Jericho”, Daniel mused aloud. “Read the names on your badges and given you backstories. It’s certainly possible.”

Gavin spat the mouthful of apple he had been chewing on across the room. The juicy sharpnels hit Daniel, something that shouldn’t have been possible under normal circumstances. But the PL600 was too confused at the moment to draw on his full agility.

“Ey, sardine tin?” Gavin snapped. “You’ll fucking leave my backstory alone! Is that understood?!”

“Oh, I don’t know what’s your gripe”, Hank grinned. “I’m totally enjoying mine so far and am sure Daniel will come up with an equally great one for you!”

Daniel smiled while wiping half-digested apple fragments off his skin. He had wanted to grin, too, but there was only so much range to a PL600’s mimic, even a deviant’s. Maybe in time he would pull off that feat. If he had time. And a real mimic instead of just an imaginary one.

Meanwhile Detective Reed was still offended by the suggestion of getting a backstory. “For real! I mean it!” he yelled.   
One moment later Daniel found himself pinned to the table and couldn’t explain how it had happened. But that was how stories worked, right? You sort of phased from one scene to the next, glossing over the unimportant stuff.

“What do you think I AM?” Reed hissed. “A dlc in some videogame you are playing?”

“No….”

“What?” The human pressed Daniel’s face into a puddle on the table where someone had spilled a coke over crumbs from their second breakfast. “I didn’t hear you clearly enough!”

“I said no, I do not think you are a dlc”, the deviant replied. “People want those! They pay money for them!”

The next thing they both knew was them someone having ended up on the floor and rolling over each other, locked in a dogfight. There was a column somewhere in the way, and legs, too many legs for just two persons involved. (One person, Gavin would have claimed).  
Then a taser arrow hit Gavin, and then a phone battery pack got pressed against Daniel’s neckport. The sensation wasn’t technically pain, but at the very least unpleasant, not to mention just as humiliating as getting ditched into drying cola.

After getting immobilized in this manner and then separated by means of a couple of kicks from Hank Anderson, man and android stared at each other in a “I would have finished you, had he not interfered!” manner, still down on the floor.

“Up with you, both of you!” Hank barked. “Or I’m going to put you under the shower together next!”

Daniel obeyed. He rose and straightened his shirt, the uniform polo with his model designation and the large ANDROID print on the back, as if he was a smartphone. It was no longer the same shirt he had been shot in, but a new one. Who had payed for it, Daniel wondered? Lt. Anderson, the deviant’s self-appointed parole officer? Or had it come out of the DPD’s fund?  
It didn’t matter. The important thing now was to wash the coke stains off the collar. Even with the visual evidence gone, though, the memory of Daniel’s encounter in the cafeteria would remain. His worries, the argument, the short brawl and also the uncomfortable awareness that Lieutenant Anderson had been hurt by Daniel’s idea about him living in a literal dream. What did it matter if that speculation was true or not? The emotions Daniel had gone through all morning, those had been real. They'd stay with him.

Simulated or experienced physically, the result was the same either way. In the end everything was just that: a memory.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of chapters that lead up to my other story, The Android Cemetery. In-between these prologue chapters and Android Cemetery goes a picture story that I posted elsewhere. I'll add the middle part as a proper narration if there's enough interest.


End file.
